New probes started into parole system's handling of Gardner

New probes have been initiated into whether the state’s parole system botched chances to send a convicted sex offender back to jail long before Poway teenager Chelsea King was raped and killed.

State Inspector General David Shaw has confirmed that “my office has already begun an inquiry” but could not comment further. The office is responsible for monitoring the state prison agency, among other duties.

Shaw was responding to a letter from Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego, who has criticized how the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation handled the John Albert Gardner III case.

Also, Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, on Wednesday approved Fletcher’s call for a legislative committee to launch a separate investigation. No date has been set for the first hearing.

Gardner was charged this month with murder in the death of Chelsea, 17, and has pleaded not guilty. He also is a focus of the investigation into the case of Amber Dubois, 14, of Escondido. She went missing on Feb. 13, 2009, and her remains were found this month north of Pala.

In 2000, Gardner pleaded guilty to molesting a 13-year-old neighbor in his mother’s Rancho Bernardo townhome. He spent five years in prison and three years on parole for the crime and was required to register as a sex offender. Records show he violated parole at least seven times but was never returned to prison for the offenses, which ranged from living too close to Miramar College and its day-care center to having low batteries in the GPS device he had to wear.

Fletcher has called on the California Department of Corrections to change its policies so that all sex offenders are brought before the Board of Parole Hearings if they violate parole, no matter how minor the offenses.

“We owe it to our children to subject sex offenders to the highest level of scrutiny possible. ... The status quo must end,” Fletcher said in a statement.

Terry Thornton, a corrections spokeswoman, said agency officials are waiting for all reviews and recommendations before acting.

“We welcome feedback from Assemblyman Fletcher on those findings as we evaluate policy decisions based on that review,” she said.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has directed the state Sex Offender Management Board, an unpaid 17-member advisory panel appointed by him and legislative leaders, to review the case. A spokeswoman said the governor “supports further levels of review by the Legislature and others.”

Fletcher said he supports that decision but believes there must also be outside investigations because the board’s staff and $500,000 budget are tied to the prison agency.

The Office of the Inspector General, according to its Web site, sees its mission as helping “safeguard the integrity of the state’s correctional system — in effect, to act as the eyes and ears of the public in overseeing the state’s prisons and correctional programs.”

Shaw, the inspector general, confirmed the investigation in a recent letter to Fletcher that was made public Wednesday.

The Web site for the Assembly Committee on Accountability and Administrative Review lists its primary jurisdictions as “identifying savings and efficiencies in the management of state government, reviewing and studying the implementation, operation, and effectiveness of state programs and agencies.”

Three local assemblymen are on the committee: Fletcher, Marty Block, D-San Diego, and Kevin Jeffries, R-Lake Elsinore.